Devastation
by WeBuiltThePyramids
Summary: Set during the end of "Bad News".  Lily gets the bad news and goes to tell Marshall.  Now re-posted.


**I told myself I wouldn't write about this-I have no idea what it's like to lose a parent, but I thought the storyline in the show was so well done and well handled, and I couldn't get this out of my head. I wrote a little bit of it in school today and finished when I got home. Hope you like it; sorry it's sad, but what else could it be, after that episode ending? I did cry, and I'm not really embarrassed to admit it because it was so real and so shocking, and I just adore Marshall and Lily and hated seeing them hurt like that.**

Lily hung up Marshall's phone and withdrew the hand that held it from it's place near her ear. She stood still, staring toward the television but seeing nothing, as she clenched the device so hard that her knuckles turned white. Marshall never forgot his phone; he'd intentionally left it behind to avoid any calls from his parents should he receive bad news at the Dr. Stangel's office. He couldn't have known that today was the worst day to leave his phone behind. She wished that MacLaren's was right downstairs; it was a taxi ride away.

Taxi. That was her next move. Shaking her head in an attempt to break out of the numbness, Lily put on her coat and went downstairs, jumping into the first taxi that thought to stop for someone who was not waving their arms. She gave the address for the bar and sank back into the seat. She was on the move, going to Marshall, but now, with nothing else to do, she had time to think. And while it was unhealthy to dwell on the bad, and Lily knew that, what else was she supposed to think of, while this was so fresh and painful? She put a hand over her face as if that would shield her from everything.

She thought of when she last saw Marshall's parents, two days ago. She thought about his mother and father telling her about the Florida trip that they would never take. She thought about his father discussing the Super Bowl that he would never attend. She thought back a few weeks to her and Marshall Web chatting with his parents, and telling the elder Eriksons about still trying to get pregnant…trying to have a child that Marshall's father would never see.

She gazed out of the window at the cars around them, at the people walking, and at the buildings that she was moving past. But she still wasn't seeing them. She was still thinking. She remembered when she was afraid that she was pregnant, that Thanksgiving just after Marshall proposed when she'd run out on that wonderful family, her own fear preventing her from enjoying her time with them. She remembered Marshall finding her in the jail cell and not wanting to promise her that they'd never move to St. Cloud. He loved it there, his family was there, and a part of him, he said, wanted to live there someday. Even though they'd both decided it was best to stay in New York, Lily now regretted fighting him in the first place and denying him those last few years with his father. Maybe, had they been living in the same town, Marshall would have been able to spend his father's last moments at his side, just like his father had always stood by him.

The cab reached the bar, and she saw him standing there near the sign that announced that the bar was open until three A.M. She looked at her watch; it was two in the morning now; she looked back to Marshall, who was holding his phone to his ear with a smile on his face. Lily choked up slightly as she thought she figured out who he was calling, whose voice he was expecting to hear over the line any moment…whose voice he'd never hear again, and whose voice would fade over time until one day he'd be unable to recall it.

He crushed her in a hug as she got out of the taxi, telling her how much he loved her, and while on any other day it would have made her heart happy to be told what she'd always known, today it made her heart break just a little more for him, and she hated to have to be the bearer of bad news. But she had to, she was his wife and he was everything to her and if the news couldn't come from his mother it had to be from her.

When she said, "somthing's happened," his face displayed worry, concern, caution. When she told him that his father's heart had failed him, his face fell. And when she said, "he didn't make it", struggling to hold in her own tears, she saw his face drain of all residual happiness as he tried to take it in.

The look that replaced the look of joy was almost too much for Lily. She felt her throat close and tears threaten to spill over her eyes. When a few escaped she took a sharp breath, trying to hold them in. She had to stay strong for Marshall; he'd been there for her for more than a decade and she had to hold it together for him, just this once…

After a few moments, she moved into his arms and she felt them curl around her neck and shoulders as she put her own around him. She felt his body start to shake, ever so slightly, as his hands clenched. "I'm not ready for this," he choked out in a voice that didn't sound like him. Lily wanted to whisper "I know" to him sympathetically, but even if she could have found words they'd have been lies. She didn't know. She had no idea what it was like to lose someone who you held that close of a bond with.

She tightened her hold on him, attempting to be the one to hold him upright, still not hearing the cars on the road near them, or hearing the laughter from inside the bar. She only heard her husband's breathing…and then she heard him break, the grief overwhelming him as the tears came.

And then Lily broke, too.

**Maybe review and let me know what you thought? It's only my second try writing them…I hope I did okay.**


End file.
